The Broom Cupboard Blues
by Glastea
Summary: Dom gets locked in a broom cupboard. In other words, pure silliness on a stick.


**The Broom Cupboard Blues**

A/N: Well, of course, the 50th Grim Fandango fic had to be good. Not that I'm acting like Domino or anything... Nevertheless, a nice little humourous piece for everyone, as a late Christmas present. Although this outing did begin as being locked in a bathroom, it transformed into the afore-mentioned broom cupboard due to the demographics of 'hang on... do skeletons need bathrooms?'. Heh. Enjoy.

Domino wasn't having the best morning. It was 11:32 AM, on a working day, and he wasn't working.

There was a simple (or not so simple) explanation for this. He wasn't practising his boxing stance, or his rabbit punches, for that matter. He wasn't even sitting behind his desk, waiting for yet another saintly client and swigging whiskey.

The truth was a whole lot more embarrassing than that. He, Domino Hurley, star worker of the DOD, with the best clients, and the person mostly likely to be able to get themselves out of this pit and on their journey to the Ninth Underworld, was pounding his fist on the door of a locked broom cupboard, and wondering which moron had locked him in there in the first place.

Well, there weren't that many choices of culprits. Eva. Manny. Don Copal... come to think about it, that was about it. Well, Copal wouldn't trap his best worker in a closet for no apparent reason, Eva surely had better things to do, so that left... damn it, Manny locked him in here.

He'd be dead bone by the time he got out.

But then, how to escape? It was a sturdy door, and there seemed to be nothing to help him inside the musty space.

Resignedly, he sat down on an upturned metal bucket, and began to wait. Surely, someone would realise he was in here, and let him out, back into respectable society.

_If Cal was more like me, he'd get away with this without breaking anything, _he thought idly to himself, shifting slightly to get comfortable on his somewhat rusty makeshift seat.

**0-0-0-0-0**

Eva had been, at best, mildly amused by the situation. She'd had the pleasures of watching Manny bundle Domino up inside his spare Grim Reaper cape and shove him (with effort) into the nearest enclosed space. Manny was either clinically insane, had a death wish, or was that desperate for promotion. Eva, if asked, would have taken a mix of three, with maybe a small amount of bias on the insanity part.

However, since she had nothing better to do: no paperwork left, she'd hidden the hole punch and there hadn't been a mass disaster in the Land of the Living for _hours, _she felt no shame in going to annoy the effective hostage.

"Is your coffee nice, Dom?" she called, tapping on the door (which Manny had taken the precaution of duct taping to its' frame and the wall around it). Dom had, in fact, been coming back from the coffee machine when he'd been ambushed.

"It's cold. Get me the hell out of here."

"I wouldn't be surprised if your café latte was all down your suit," she said, only to receive no answer.

"Just tell Cal to get me out, so I can wring his neck," came the voice from inside the cupboard.

I'll tell him." Eva retreated from the cupboard, and returned to her desk, only to find the infamous 'abductor' riffling through the contents of her workspace as the elevator doors opened, obviously looking for something.

"Where's the hole punch?" He asked, literally sticking his head inside a desk drawer.

"Nowhere near you," she replied, sitting in her chair and pulling her typewriter towards her, on order to type a report for Salvador. After all, anything new had to be reported: even something as mundane as this. "Oh, and Dom says he wants you to let him out, so he can wring your neck."

"Really?" Manny replied absentmindedly, throwing wadges of paper into the air in his search. "That would make my week."

The metallic click of typewriter keys began as Eva began to type her report, and Manny suddenly stopped his mad quest of 'locate the office stationary' to put in a comment.

"Copal's a cheapskate if he can't get you a computer. We all have them."

"I'm a secretary, not the Queen of Sheba," she replied. "Go and make a will in your office, Manny." He sighed and walked back to his designated space in the building, as she stared blankly at the mess around her, wondering why on Earth she stayed here, and hadn't given the hole punch to Manny for him to keep yet.

**0-0-0-0-0**

Meanwhile, inside the broom cupboard on the floor below, Domino was suffering whiskey withdrawal symptoms. His bones were expecting the pre-lunch whiskey shot, and it hadn't received it yet. This, on top of everything else, was not what he needed.

He resolved to go out drinking and get completely legless as soon as someone let him out.

**0-0-0-0-0 **

"Eva..." Manny said, leaning against the wall next to Don Copal's office.

"No. You are not having the hole punch."

"Actually, I was wondering when Don Copal's coming back."

"I'm not entirely sure," she replied, "but no, you're still not getting the hole punch."

"Eh hjole, is that all you think of me?" He said, hurt.

"Yes." Eva went on typing.

**0-0-0-0-0**

Back in the broom cupboard, Domino was getting more and more paranoid. Sitting in the dark (actually, there was a light switch, but he hadn't thought of looking for one yet), everything was starting to make more and more sense.

Everyone was against him.

There was nowhere he would be safe.

Cal, after the Christmas Party incident, had begun to plot his downfall. Any way to get rid of the new guy, who was taking all his clients. He talked Eva into it, and together, they began to plot his downfall.

Don Copal had gone away on false 'business', that Eva had created to get him out of the way, so there was no one to save him. It all slotted into place, but, if Cal and Eva had taken his example, he wouldn't have worked out their plot: after all, they hadn't worked out his scheme with Le Mans.

Rocking back and forth on the cold, rusty bucket, inside the chilly, damp, dark cupboard, Dom saw everything clearly. Even the hole punch played a part in the elaborate conspiracy.

The only problem was, if everyone was out to get him, who would let him out so he could unmask their dastardly plan?

**0-0-0-0-0**

"Do you think I should let him out?" Manny asked, sitting on Eva's desk and peering over her shoulder to see what she was typing. In response, she pointedly turned the typewriter at a ninety degree angle away from him.

"You got yourself into this, Manny. Bail, and you'll get laughed at. Keep at it, and you'll probably get sprouted. Take your pick."

"Well," Manny said thoughtfully, "if I die again, will you put the hole punch in my grave?"

Eva swatted him around the back of the skull.

"Okay, fine... can I have the hole punch now?"

Eva resisted every urge she possessed not to smash him around the skull with her typewriter.

**0-0-0-0-0**

Dom was, inevitably, still inside the cupboard. He was still shaking and sweating slightly from his lack of alcohol, but he'd come to a dead end as far as the DOD conspiracy went.

However, that wasn't that much of a setback. After all, he had two and a half hours until Don Copal came back (that said, if Eva and Cal hadn't had him sprouted), and then he'd be let out.

And then... and then... oh, revenge was sweet.

**0-0-0-0-0**

"Manny, answer me this. Why on earth do you want the hole punch in the first place?" Eva had got bored with keeping the piece of office equipment out of the seemingly desperate skeleton's grasp.

"Apart from an odd urge to hole punch my card deck... no reason. Oh, aside from treasury tagging the report that should be on Copal's desk there about now."

"Have you ever heard of a stapler, Manny?" Eva asked, mocking boredom to mask her exasperation.

"It's just not the same," he replied.

She handed him the hole punch, and he almost skipped back to his office like a small child at Christmas. However, from beneath her, there was a loud banging. Domino was, apparently, causing a commotion and trying to smash his way to freedom. Sighing, she stepped into the lift and went to visit the seemingly desperate escapee.

"Dom, you don't want to pay for a replacement door," she called to him. "I saw the invoice."

"I don't give a damn, Eva. I know what you and Manny are up to. As soon as I get out..." Eva blocked out the rest of the somewhat frenzied babbling (although it was nothing more than she got from Manny on an hourly basis, that was against the point), and headed back up to her desk. She had a report to finish.

**0-0-0-0-0**

Two and a half hours later, Don Copal returned to the Department of Death, only to find Eva tidying up a desk that looked as if it had been hit by a minor tremor, a report that looked like it had been attacked by a hole punch from Manny, and no Domino Hurley in sight.

"Eva," he said, forcing a calm demeanour (he was on the point of boiling, but just stopping himself from exploding like the average volcano), "Where's Domino?"

"Ask Manny," she said, looking up briefly from her desk.

"Calavera!" Now officially not in a good mood, he watched the unfortunate skeleton poke his head out from inside his office. "Where's Domino?!"

Manny stood in the hallway, and began to concoct an excuse. "Dom flipped out on us, so I locked him in the broom closet downstairs. We can't go near him- he starts howling and wailing..."

"Get him out."

"What?" Manny was taken aback.

"You heard me, Calavera! Get him out!" Manny sighed, and traversed the corridor to get in the elevator, feeling that the optimistically cheerful music was not the thing he needed. Not with a somewhat angry boss standing next to him, grinding his teeth.

Standing in front of the door, which was shaking from the impact of the skeleton inside bashing against it, Manny withdrew his scythe from his jacket's inner pocket, unfolded it, and sliced through the duct tape covering the door jamb. Replacing the sharp device inside his suit blazer, he delved back inside the pocket to find a set of keys.

"How big are your pockets?" Eva asked, in a tone of wonder.

"Big enough," he replied, and unlocked the door. Pulling it open, he stepped smartly to one side as a wreck of a skeleton fell out, landing on the carpet. Getting up hurriedly, Dom strode into the elevator, muttering something about paperwork, and not noticing the large coffee stain that was all over his suit.

**0-0-0-0-0**

"Eva," Domino said confidently, striding up to her desk, "do something for me."

"If this has anything to do with last week's broom closet incident, no," she replied, not looking up from the report she was still typing.

"If I don't talk about my clients, boxing or how great I am for a week, will you do something for me?" he asked, trying to barter.

Eva stopped typing and considered it for a moment. "Two weeks."

"Done. I need you to tell Cal that Don Copal put the hole punch inside the broom closet at the end of the corridor."

"Oh, no. I'm not getting caught up in this," she said, knowing exactly what was coming. However, Domino, having got what he wanted, had sauntered back into his office.

It was two hours later, after a client had just left, that Manny flew out of his office in a panic. "Eva -- where's the hole punch?" He asked, obviously distracted.

Decision time. Be loyal to Manny, or not have to listen to Domino talk about... well... much, for a week. Hang loyalty.

"Copal put it in the cupboard at the end of the corridor," she told him. "Said he'd got annoyed with it."

Face falling, Manny dashed to the end of the corridor, only to venture into the cupboard in question. However, as soon as he got inside, the door slammed, and you could distinctly hear a key scraping in the lock.

"You see, Cal, if you were more like me..." Manny groaned, and wondered how long until Eva let him out.

**0-0-0-0-0**

As Eva finally finished her report, pulling the final piece of paper out of her typewriter in triumph, a thought struck her. _Two weeks_ without Domino going on about himself, and a few hours without Manny bugging her for the stupid hole punch (she wasn't planning to let him out yet). Ah, life was going to be sweet.


End file.
